Got to Get You into My Life

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Recording

Equipment

Recording Timeline

• 7 April 1966 (Thu) — rhythm track takes 1–5, Studio Three — 8.15pm–1.30am. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. The first take featured a one-note organ introduction (played by George Martin) and Ringo’s hi-hat, “paving the way for a very acoustic number.” Before take 4 the Beatles and Martin discussed alternative ideas. Take 5 had “the organ and then a full drum intro, heavily limited, and it was also the first to feature vocals” — Paul backed by John and George singing “Got to get you into my life, somehow, someway” at the instrumental breaks, with John and George offering the chant “I need your love” four times over in the refrain. Take 5 was marked ‘best’ on the tape box, if only temporarily.¹
• 8 April 1966 (Fri) — rhythm track takes 6–8, Studio Two — 2.30–9.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. “More work on ‘Got To Get You Into My Life’, perfecting the rhythm track. Take eight was deemed ‘best’, later to be overdubbed with vocals, guitar and its distinctive brass passages.” Phil McDonald’s notes record drums “heavily limited” and bass “prominent” on Track 1; fuzz guitars and vocals on Track 2; backing vocals and double-tracked bass on Track 3; Paul’s lead vocal (“lots of limiting”) on Track 4.^1,2
• 11 April 1966 (Mon) — guitar SI onto take 8, Studio Two — 2.30–7.00pm. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. A guitar overdub was taped onto the existing take 8, sharing the afternoon session with the start of Love You To (takes 1–3).¹
• 25 April 1966 (Mon) — rough mono remixes 1–2, Room 65 — 10.00–11.00am. E: Peter Vince. “Rough mono remixes, without echo, for the purpose of cutting acetates.”¹
• 18 May 1966 (Wed) — brass overdub + vocal remake + reduction, Studio Two — 2.30pm–2.30am. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. The defining session. Five brass players (Thornton, Coe, Hamer, Condon, Branscombe) recorded two performances onto Tracks 2 and 3 of take 8, erasing the earlier fuzz guitars and vocals. A reduction mix combined both brass tracks into one (takes 9–11, with take 9 best). Paul then superimposed “a fresh — and sensational — vocal” backed by John and George, plus guitars in another overdub. Two mono remixes (1–2) completed the 12-hour session.¹
• 17 June 1966 (Fri) — final guitar SI + mono remixes 3–7, Studio Two — 7.00pm–1.30am. An extra guitar passage was overdubbed onto take 9, rendering previous mixes unusable. Five new mono remixes were produced; RM7 was ‘best’.¹
• 20 June 1966 (Mon) — mono RM8 (brass fly-in), Studio One control room — 6.00–8.30pm. P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. The brass was deemed too low in RM7, so a copy was made and the 18 May brass (from take 8, Tracks 2 and 3) was superimposed “fractionally out of sync” to boost the horns. “With this work the song was finally perfect.”^1,2
• 22 June 1966 (Wed) — stereo remix 1, Studio Three control room — 7.00pm–1.30am. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Jerry Boys. “Final mono and stereo remixing for the LP.” The stereo remix was made from take 9 with no brass fly-in needed.^1,2
• 17–22 June 1966 — a brass overdub that only mono has — The mono was mixed on 17 and 20 June 1966 and the stereo on 22 June.³ A brass overdub added on 20 June went onto the mix tape rather than the multitrack, so it could not be carried into the stereo. The two mixes also differ in the vocal heard at the fade.³

Studio Notes

• Mono/stereo divergence in the outro vocal comping — During the outro, Paul ad-libbed his vocal and sang it differently on each of the two vocal tracks. The mixers alternated between the two takes, “taking the best bits from each one (this method was quite similar to the ‘comping’ of vocal tracks in modern recording).” Beginning at 2:06, Track 4 carries “I was alone I took a ride I didn’t know what I would find there”, then Track 3 (with tambourine and organ) fades in for “Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there.” The mono and stereo mixes diverge after the line “Did I tell you I need you”: the stereo rides out on Track 4 (“Every single day”), while the mono stays on Track 3 (“Every single day of my life” plus wordless vocalising).²
• Mono RM8 brass fly-in — unique in the Beatles catalogue — Rather than remix from the ground up, Martin and Emerick copied RM7 and superimposed the brass from the original 18 May session tape “fractionally out of sync”. This took two and a half hours of work to align. “No such process had to be carried out during the stereo mix two days later.” The mono master therefore carries a slightly different (boosted) brass balance from the stereo.^1,2
• Fuzz guitar ghost in the drum track — The original fuzz guitars recorded on Track 2 alongside the rhythm track (7–8 April) were eventually erased when the brass was overdubbed on 18 May. However, “during the recording, the guitars leaked into Ringo’s drum mics and can actually be heard on the final recording with careful listening.” The fuzz guitars were “playing the phrases eventually played by the brass.”²
• Stereo panning arrangement — The stereo mix of the song followed the standard “Music-Left and Right / Vocals-Centre” panning model used on several Revolver tracks, including Taxman, She Said She Said, Good Day Sunshine, and For No One.²
• Close-miking as Revolver-era innovation — Emerick’s close-miking of the brass was part of a broader 1966 revolution at Abbey Road. He had already moved the bass drum microphone “much closer to the drum than had been done before” and stuffed a woollen jumper inside the drum to deaden the sound, running the signal through Fairchild 660 valve limiters. “It became the sound of Revolver and Pepper really. Drums had never been heard like that before.”¹
• Revolver echo chamber context — In keeping with the dry Revolver aesthetic established by Emerick, the song carried minimal echo chamber treatment. “Revolver was an extremely dry album” — only a handful of tracks received appreciable chamber (“Here, There and Everywhere”, “Yellow Submarine”, “Good Day Sunshine”, “For No One”).²

Releases

The mono has a brass overdub the stereo could not receive, and the two mixes end on different vocals.

• 1966 UK mono LP — Revolver (Parlophone PMC 7009) — Mixed 17 and 20 June 1966. The brass was augmented on 20 June with a further overdub laid onto the mix tape itself — so this thickened brass sound exists only in mono. The stereo could not inherit it.
• 1966 UK stereo LP — Revolver (Parlophone PCS 7009) — Mixed 22 June 1966, from before the brass augmentation, so the horns are leaner. It also differs at the fade: the two mixes carry different vocal lines as the song goes out.
• 1966 US LP — Revolver (Capitol T 2576 mono / ST 2576 stereo) — The 1966 UK masters through Capitol’s cutting chain. Note that the US Revolver is three tracks shorter than the UK album, so the running order differs.
• 2009 remaster — Revolver (Parlophone 99458 2, 9 September 2009) — Flat transfers of the 1966 masters, stereo and mono. No mixing decisions revisited.
• 1996 — Anthology 2 (Apple CDP 8 34448 2) — A 1995 stereo mix of an earlier version, before the brass existed at all.
• 2022 new stereo and Dolby Atmos — Revolver Special Edition (28 October 2022, Giles Martin and Sam Okell) — Remixed from the four-track master using the machine-learning de-mixing developed at WingNut Films, which separates instruments that shared a track in 1966. The brass separates from the rhythm section for the first time, and the fade is legible rather than a blur.